Here are the first pictures of the card AMD hopes to take on NVIDIA's bestselling GeForce GTX 760 with, the Radeon R9 285. This particular one, branded by Sapphire, featuring its Dual-X cooling solution. The R9 285 is based on a brand new chip by AMD, codenamed "Tonga." It's rumored to feature the same stream processor count as one of the "Tahiti" variants, while featuring higher clocks, and a narrower 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, a fact confirmed by this card's marketed 2 GB of memory. Given how marketing material of the R9 285 is ready, its launch may not be far away.

AFAIK, the 280 pro already beats the GTX 760. Why does this guy keep repeating the same thing about the new 285 series? Does he know something that he doesn't mention in the posts?

How do you know it's positioned against the GTX 760? If I were to guess, the new 285 series might be direct replacements for the R9 290 and 290x. How do I know? Well, I'm just guessing, just like the OP...

AFAIK, the 280 pro already beats the GTX 760. Why does this guy keep repeating the same thing about the new 285 series? Does he know something that he doesn't mention in the posts?

How do you know it's positioned against the GTX 760? If I were to guess, the new 285 series might be direct replacements for the R9 290 and 290x. How do I know? Well, I'm just guessing, just like the OP...

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More likely a 280/280x replacement.
Should be more along the 770/780 performance...

I guess it depends how much 256bit limits it and how much gcn2 tweaks help it...

Is this a harvested GPU? In AMD's product stack, the cards based on fully enabled dies end with an "X" and the cards based on harvested dies do not have an "X" (excluding the R7 250, which is a fully enabled GPU).

More likely a 280/280x replacement.
Should be more along the 770/780 performance...

I guess it depends how much 256bit limits it and how much gcn2 tweaks help it...

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It's not the fact 256-bit limits it so much, it's the fact 5500mhz limits it, unless there is some arch difference we don't know about. There's quite a spread from 5500mhz to what potentially 7ghz (overclocked) could achieve, as this will likely be limited purely by bandwidth capable (or power allowance restraining clockspeed) because of ram/placement in the stack choice. It would not necessarily be the bottleneck if the ram was faster (to a point...think something like 1792sp @ 1111mhz/7000, similar to 680 would work fine, or proportionally how high 7ghz could scale, and as such core clock could as well).

5500mhz is around enough for 1536sp at 1018mhz or 873mhz with 1792. I think the likely scenario is the former, but it could be the later, certainly (and hopefully). The later would be more efficient, but clockspeed of 918mhz (base clock?) makes me think the former...but sometimes amd clocks their chips a little higher to make up optimal texture rate etc differences, so it's possible it's 1792 even if 918mhz boost clock. We'll know soon enough.

Just taking that (baseline, assuming similar to past GCN products) and comparing it to 760:
1018*1536/1344 = 1164mhz, if both have close to perfect bandwidth/flop.
(*760 is 6*192sp+32sfu = similar to 1344sp when not limited by compute)
At that clock 760 would need around 4715mhz ram clock, but it has a base of 6000.
6000/4715 = 1.2725
.2725*.16 = 1.0436 (approx added performance for extra bw)
1164/1.0436 = 760 @ 1116/6000 ~= 285 @ aprox optimal flops/5500mhz @ 256-bit.
A 760 generally boosts to around that level during normal operation.

So, essentially (granted things vary based on where a bottleneck is in a scenario) they should be similar, especially if amd clocks their core slightly above optimal to even out some advantages nvidia has per flop/clock, and obviously in compute heavy scenarios will be superior.

Doesn't matter if it's 1792 or 1536sp though, really. What matters (I suppose) is max bandwidth and the maximum power allowed by powertune; where amd wants it to perform overall vs other products. I can't imagine it going much higher than something like 1185/6400 (given where 6ghz ram often craps out) if 1536sp or relatively lower if 1792sp...either way that's (overall) very similar to how an overclocked 760 would perform (at something like 1300/6400). It could be slightly faster if the ram scales higher, and amd allows high-enough voltage tweaking/power consumption (the former being more important if less shaders) etc, but I wouldn't get my hopes up far past a fairly similar part unless there is some dramatic architecture revelation we don't know yet.

285 and 2GB RAM.
That just doesn't compute? A bigger model number than 280 but with less RAM.
I hope we will not have a repeat of the 7700 series replacement fiasco with those pathetic worst performing R7 240, R7 250 cards. I hope that 285, offers indeed better performance than 280 to justify that extra 5 even having less memory.

So no news on who's producing these (GloFo?) or TDP figures? For Price i'm thinking $240 MSRP... while still no firm release date. These picture don't do anything for me. this could piddle out till the last week of Au-dis-gust. Checking what in the US etailer's 280's sku's are down to 5, while their price have jumped up, appears the market is ready. Let's pull the trigger AMD!

looking at the code name 285, does it means that it's power is in the middle of a 280x and a normal 290 ??
and what about the price. it should be in the middle of those 2 cards too right ??

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It means nothing. For example the difference between 250 and 250X is huge. The difference between 260 and 260X is minimal.
285 should be faster than 280 and 280X, but how much faster? Faster everywhere or just on most cases? We'll have to wait and see.